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Players begin to run out of explanations

England’s senior men are unwilling to hide from the team’s shortcomings

Matt Hughes

March 26 2007, 1:00am, The Times

England’s self-imposed D-Day was supposed to deliver, as Steve McClaren repeated laboriously last week, a performance of authority, but to judge from the expressions and words of the players leaving the Ramat Gan Stadium on Saturday evening, the only things it produced were dejection and disappointment.

Fortunately for the England head coach, it seems that Brian Barwick, the FA chief executive, will be similarly slow in posting McClaren his P45. The only silver lining for McClaren as he left the smoggy city of Tel Aviv with a huge cloud over his future is that the next delivery day has been postponed until the summer. With three points against Andorra in Barcelona on Wednesday surely inevitable, England’s next real test will not come until they travel…